A – Z Challenge Reflections

This was my first A-Z Challenge. My main purpose when I started was to make myself write more. It worked. Before April 1, I filled in the calendar with a topic for each day. After the first week, I realized that I couldn’t do 26 days of posts that required so much research. I was spending all day, and into the night working. By the end, I had simplified my expectations and even got a few posts ahead. I used my usual theme of family history, past, present and future for the A-Z Challenge.

Although it was somewhat daunting to find blogs that spoke to me in the list of over 1,800 participants, I finally got the hang of it and found it easier to look at blogs of people who made interesting comments on blogs I read or people who posted near me on twitter or fb. I would appreciate having more labels. My blog went unlabeled because none of them seemed to fit. I found some new blogs I will be following and made some new blogging friends.

I don’t have a “like” button or a counter, so I have no idea how many people visited unless they left comments. I will probably add both soon. Thanks to Arlee for thinking up this challenge and all the helpers and participants. I look forward to participating in the A-Z Challenge in 2014. Maybe I’ll even get a few posts written in advance during the coming year.

32 thoughts on “A – Z Challenge Reflections”

Thank you for being a part of the 2013 Challenge. And congratulations on meeting your goal to write more. It is a challenge isn’t it. Glad to hear you’ll be coming back for 2014. And you’ll this year’s experience behind you!

I have loved your posts, although I have saved them so I can enjoy them more and comment. It was great to have you on board for 2013 and looking forward to 2014!

In my reflection post I suggest a genealogy group – although I joined and behind my name put books and genealogy as they are the two topics I share the most at Anglers Rest.

Your posts are always full of so much data and I fully understand that it can take hours to put together posts. Perhaps take those posts and put them into a book, afterall you have done a great deal of the work already.

Maybe I’ll have to do that book during NaNoWriMo this year. I keep putting it off and I like a challenge. We shall see. I’ll have to go read your reflection now. I didn’t comment as much as usual, but I did read.

NaNoWriMo falls in November? I might join you & pull together a series of posts that I have already written – perhaps expand them a bit. I am planning to do a photo collage for Remembrance Day for the 2 weeks encompassing 11th Nov to inc all those who served in a military capacity.

Preparation is the key to surviving A to Z. I had my theme early this year and had responses back from at least 24 of my 26 interview victims, so it was pretty easy to look up the letter for the day, pull up the interview materials, and get the post up quickly unless I realized at the last minute that something was missing. 😉

That was one place I realized I need to prepare ahead – posts that I wrote about cousins that I wanted them to pre-approve or photos I wanted their permission to use – doesn’t work to wait until the day before to do that. In fact, I ended up with a couple of those to post after the challenge because the approval arrived after the day I needed it.

Striking that balance between what we want to write and what we have time to write is key. Glad you found it. I hear you saying “family history” would be a good label for you? I’ll see how many I collect, and we’ll consider it. Congrats on finishing!
Tina @ Life is Good
Co-host, April 2013 A-Z Challenge Blog
@TinaLifeisGood, #atozchallenge

What’s cool about this challenge is that it can mean so many different things to each person. It doesn’t have to be about the number of comments or visitors to your blog. Maybe it’s more personal, like writing every day. I chose a theme of women authors because it was important to me, even if it might not get high traffic to my blog. 🙂

I agree completely. I also blogged about what i was interested in and I got a few more people coming through and that’s always nice but it wasn’t my main focus. I enjoyed reading some new blogs too. I’ll have to go read your wrap-up post.

It is intrepid of you to be thinking of next year already! I am delighted to have discovered your blog and “met” you through this challenge. I too was dreaming up and writing my posts at the last minute, having signed up on the very last day. Your blog was an inspiration to me and one that I kept returning to throughout the challenge. But lie you I found it hard to navigate that long list, and found people in a haphazard ind of way, either by visiting blogs that had intriguing titles, looking for Indian-souning names (since I grew up in India), or, like you, visiting the blogs of people who made interesting comments.

Glad you had a good time! Getting ahead of the posts is always a good idea. I try to have all of mine written before it begins, because it’s just too insane during the month.
Hope you’ll be back next year!

The way I was doing my posts for the challenge changed throughout the month as well. I ended up taking a lot more time than I had in the beginning, because early on I was too restricted and later realised I had missed out on mentioning some great songs for my posts. Anyway, congrats on your A-Z achievement! 😀

I’m impressed that you are still visiting! I haven’t gotten a chance to do that lately, although I do visit everybody who comments on my blog. Your’s for instance. Thanks for visiting and glad you enjoyed the theme.